4 years

Hi, I would like to know how much food are you giving to your Sammy? We're giving ours 3 cups a day of Large breed puppy Nutrisource. Hiro is currently 4 months and 9 days and weights 11.1kg

4 years

Hi Isaac,
I saw the picture of Hiro, he is so beautiful, I like his long hair and that he still has the heart-like hair shape around his face, gorgeous! Congratulations. When was his last deworm? That's key.
Bailey is a big boy, he was the biggest of his litter. On the other hand Baloo our previous Sammy (also registered here at Belpatt) was smaller and lighter than Bailey even though they share the same parents (different litters).

Short answer to your question: 4.4 cups a day. Bailey is 6 months and 19 days and weights 26.8 kg.

In detail these are the cares we take for feeding Bailey:

We found a good quality food at a good price which is Kirkland Signature Super Premium Puppy Food, we get it at Costco/PriceSmart. Please note that compared to other good quality foods, with Kirkland the daily feeding serve is about 25% less than others.

According to Bailey's age and weight, based in the feeding guide printed in the back of the food bag, we are giving him 480 gr daily, divided in 3 meals of 160 gr each. Instead of giving him in each meal 160 gr of plain Kirkland food, we are replacing 40 gr of Kirkland with 40 gr of chicken breast, so each meal is: 120 gr of Kirkland + 40 gr of chicken breast (cooked in plain water).

As an extra, most of the times we make some little additions as explained below:

After cooking the chicken breast in plain water, we keep the chicken broth which is rich in fat, once it cools down we keep it in the fridge and in most meals we warm it and moist the food with about 1/3 cup of chicken broth, he loves it!

Every second day, at breakfast we add 1 table spoon (tbs) of greek yogurt, this provides healthy probiotics, in this case we don't add the broth from cooking the chicken breast (because my daughter does not like the aspect of the combination of yogurt and chicken broth :)

At lunch usually we add 2 tbs of blended carrot (I noticed that when the carrot is shopped instead of blended, next day the little pieces come out looking the same, so we
better blend it to increase the absorption).

At dinner, this week we started adding half an apple also blended.

Either the 1 tbs of greek yogurt or 2 tbs of carrot or the 1/2 apple, is an extra to the 160 gr of each of the 3 meals per day.

I know giving him the extras may seem a bit too much, but trust me, at this age Bailey is a bottomless barrel.

Bailey is tall and in good shape, I think at his young age the growth hormone prevents him from becoming fat.

Until he was 6 months we were giving him 4 meals a day (same daily total as with 3 meals). From 6 months we switched to 3 meals for the same daily total.

I have weighted 1 cup of Kirkland Signature Super Premium Puppy Food and it weights 110 gr. So the 480 gr per day we are giving him are equivalent to 4.4 cups. Though we really give him only 360 gr of Kirkland food (3.3 cups) + 120 gr of chicken breast per day.

Based on the feeding guide in the back of the food bag, I made a simple linear equation for calculating the daily amount of food according to the age and weight, so in a Numbers spread sheet (by Apple Inc.), I just type his weight, amount of chicken and number of meals per day, and it tells me the exact grams of food per day and per meal, rounded in steps of 5 gr to make it even easier.

Regarding Bailey's weight, I keep telling him we need to flatten the curve.

Best regards,

Guillermo

[Modified]

4 years

Hi Guillermo,

I saw Bailey picture and he is lovely! Thanks a lot for all the helpful information, I started giving him 135gr of Nutrisource large breed puppy + 30gr of chicken breats cooked in plain water, in addition to this we usually give him apple, watermelon or carrot as he loves them. He is current weight with 5 months and 5 days is 15kg, I think he is lighter than his other siblings as they're 18kg.

Vet told me that not all the puppies feom the same litter growths at the same speed so that sort of calm me, but still I hope he growths a lot. I'm especting to be at 28kg at least.

Any other advice is always welcome.

Thanks!
Isaac RM

[Modified]

4 years

Hi Isaac,

You are welcome. Regarding other advice about dogs feeding; whenever it happens, a very fast and effective solution for diarrea is the canned intestinal diet from brands like Royal Canin, Hills and Dr. Clouder's (my favorite); in this case we suspend the dry pellets and give him only the intestinal diet. With this by next day he is fine and we reintroduce the dry pellets gradually in combination with the intestinal diet.

A great alternative to the intestinal diet is giving him only chicken breast (without the skin in case of diarrea).

In seven months it has happened only twice, so the first day we give him the intestinal diet (either canned or chicken breast), the second day he has been fine again, and by the third day he is back to his normal diet.

All the best,

Guillermo